Friday, October 3, 2008

We are in the ICU again

You read that right. We had an eventfulThursday which has turned into another stay at Children's ICU. Thursday morning we had an appointment with the Gland Dr. regarding Eli and his next few months. The Dr. had some blood drawn and sent to the lab and we went home thinking everything is fine. We get a call around 4:00pm from the Dr's office for us to return to children's Hospital ER because his labs are off. Wait a minute this sounds just like Monday's post. We were a bit upset thinking if we keep having to go down to the ER just because somebody goofs up his lab report, we are going to be ticked. So we get the kids together for the grandparents to watch, and head on down. Same procedure occurs and Eli goes through some test that reveal his potassium levels are too high and his salt level is too low. NOT GOOD!! They Dr's want to re-test to be sure. When I say re-test that means the nurse has to try to find a vein on a 11day old infant that has been stuck over 30 times. Good luck finding a vein that has not been blown. Poor kid looks like a bruised pin cushion. So they find a place and start another IV in his leg. Meanwhile his body temp has dropped 2 degrees and so the Nurses decide to put a warmer on him. Your probably wondering where I am going with all of this. Hang on....here it comes. SoooooIlde heads to the house to get some extra cloths for the night and Jim is alone with Eli. This is where everything goes bad. Eli all of a sudden starts crying a lot so Jim starts to feed him and realizes he is very warm. The warmer is cooking him like a bake potato, the cencer wasn't picking up how hot he was getting. After insisting to the nurse that he is getting way to hot she turns it off. Eli continues to cry his really bad for like another 45 minutes and Jim is getting a bit panicked because lots of alarms are going off and He is having no success getting Eli to calm down. He decides to unwrap him and notices that his foot is purple and his leg is swollen up twice as big as the other one. Jim calls the nurse in and demands to see a Dr. What had happened was Eli's IV had blown the vein and was pumping a lot of fluid into his leg causing him a ton of pain. OUCH!! At this point I think Jim was ready to call it a night. After this crazy event they decided to admit Eli to the ICU to get him stabilized and see why his labs keep getting out of whack. So that is where we are currently and are playing the waiting game. Eli is doing better, however it looks like he is going to need an additional steroid to fix this potassium and salt issue. The reason that the potassium level is so important is if it gets to high like his was it will potentially mess with your heart. Please keep us in your prayers. This has been a tough go thinking we are safe and at home then finding out we are back where we started a week ago. Tough on the ol'e emotions. Ilde and I are doing better today but are a little skaken up. We will let you know how tomorrow goes.